Soul Retrieval

The concept of soul retrieval recognises that parts of our soul can leave us in times of difficulty and go to a sacred place where they are held safely until the time is right to bring them back. To the shaman of the Inca in Peru, this place is called the Underworld and is overseen by a loving light being called Huascar. There are many models in different cultures and religions for this place of the lost soul, but this is a model I find the sweetest and most powerful to work with.

For me, I see this mythical place as within us rather than without. When I retrieve soul parts it feels like I am ceremonially revealing a pure aspect that has been hidden in the shadows, a part that we have not accessed for a while that is ready to be brought out again into the light. It is not truly lost, jut lying dormant within our luminous body.

Soul retrievals can only be performed when you have healed the original wound that caused the soul part to ‘leave’. This may be an emotional trauma from this life, but the majority are echoes of the original trauma from an earlier life on your soul record. If unresolved, these original wounds will keep repeating and expressing themselves physically over and over until the energy is resolved. The orphan child of a previous life may be the child of divorced parents in this one; the celibate monk who makes a vow of chastity may struggle to find a partner in future incarnations. The energy is the same, only the expression has changed as the soul journey evolves.

This procedure, therefore, normally shows to me after I have been working with you for a few sessions. Even then, we need to revisit the original wound during this ceremony and clear its energy once and for all, otherwise the soul part may choose to leave again. This healing then flows forward into all the lives where the energy was repeated, up to today.

On this mythical journey, I visited the underworld and entered 4 chambers:

  • The chamber of wounds – where the original trauma was shown to me that caused your pure soul part to leave. We cannot change this, only observe.

  • The chamber of contracts – this contains the instruction your wounded soul then took on board after the trauma, to guide you thereafter. These are rarely positive, which is why we deleted it during the session to give you space to be guided now by a new instruction.

  • The chamber of grace – this is where the lost pure soul part resided, waiting to come back

  • The chamber of gifts – this held the symbolic gift for you.

A power animal then joined me on my return journey to this middle world.

These gifts are based in the mythic, so they do not necessarily have a literal message for you. As an example, a plant in a pot doesn’t necessarily mean that your soul part likes greenery in your house, it may represent creative energy, connection with nature, being able to breathe pure air, or an aspect that you have contained and not allowed to blossom into its full wildness.

In the same way, your power animal might be something you might not necessarily associate yourself with like, say, a tortoise. The message here might be to take life slowly, enjoy the earth under your feet, and know that you can slip back into your protective shell whenever you need to.

To help embody this new soul part fully within you, it is important that you connect with these gifts and understand the reasons why your soul part chose them. To do this, you can create a sacred drama where you imagine being stood opposite each returning aspect in turn, the soul part, the gift and the power animal. Choose the order that feels right to you and move backwards and forwards between them if you wish.

Using the plant in a pot example, stand opposite where you project it to be and ask it 2 key questions (others if you wish): What is your gift to me? How can I use you? You then move into the place where you visualise the gift and allow yourself to become it; this will almost certainly mean allowing it to move your physical body into a new shape, maybe holding your arms out like branches and leaves. You will feel this energy come over you, more easily than you might expect. Then hear the two questions being asked to you and allow the answers to flow into your mind. Vocalise them if that helps. We can all do this; sacred drama is a natural gift we can all access, although you may sense the answer in any number of ways, feeling or seeing things rather than simply hearing the words. Use your natural gifts and allow the energy of the symbol you are working with to flow through you.

Using the plant example, you might hear the words ‘I represent the connection to nature that you lost during your childhood when this soul part left. I ask you to reconnect with nature now, take more care in your garden to honour the plants there, take more walks in nature. When you do this, your soul part is happy and its return to you will be smooth and loving’. If you do the same with the soul part and the power animal, you should be able to build up a picture of how these three new aspects of you want to work together and what support they need from you.

If you tune in to the mythic world every day, you should be able to see them and how they are getting on. You may see your soul part standing in a wood, digging a hole to plant out the gift, guided to the right place by the power animal you were given. Whatever you see is absolutely real, just not in the ‘middle world‘ we inhabit with our bodies and conscious minds. Whenever you work in the mythical you create powerful change in your belief systems and in your life. When you connect with your authentic self in the mythical, this will inevitably help you find it in this world, clearing the blocks and beliefs that previously constrained you.

After 28 days, the soul part and gifts will have become part of your pure essence and you will no longer need to work with them as though they are separate from you. You may well notice this completing before the end of this period. You should notice the difference in how you feel in your body and how connected you are to your life and all it offers you.

This is then the time to reconsider what contract you want to work with. If the contract you released was, for example, ‘life is dangerous, run and hide’ you might want to create a new contract for your soul to follow that fills the vacuum left by the cancellation of the old guidance. Something like ‘I know that I am safe and supported in every step of my life’. Trust whatever comes to you from your intuitive self, write it down and keep it somewhere safe.

If this all sounds a bit daunting, don’t worry. Your soul part has returned to you now because the time is right to do so. Do try to honour the embodiment process, but if you find it hard to connect fully, just be guided by your longing and your intuition in the month ahead. Do whatever feels good to you, the chances are this new soul part will be enjoying it too – it is, after all, an aspect of you.

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